Do you know what happened in Latin America? ALERTA Latam Observatory Monthly Bulletin – April 2026
Latin America and Europe Ahead of the EU-CELAC Summit: Shared Rhetoric, Real Gaps
Researcher Par Engstrom has just published two reports commissioned by the European Parliament on human rights and accountability in Latin America and the Caribbean, in the context of the 4th EU-CELAC Summit (Santa Marta, November 2025). The overall assessment is clear: the region is at a critical juncture, marked by democratic tensions, a civic space under pressure, evolving patterns of violence, and persistent structural inequalities. But Engstrom does not stop at this bleak portrait; he also highlights the resilience of what he calls the “mosaic of regional accountability”: courts, oversight institutions, an active civil society, and mechanisms such as the Inter-American Human Rights System.
The study also offers an uncomfortable assessment: the Latin American region simultaneously combines accelerated democratic setbacks, criminal violence that overwhelms states, and a progressive closure of civic space, while maintaining formal commitments to international human rights law that rarely translate into effective protection. Furthermore, the problem is that its effectiveness varies dramatically by country, and is particularly weak in the contexts where it is most needed—where political pressure, illegal economies, and institutional fragility converge. The report also notes that transnational organized crime, pressures on journalists and defenders, and trade frameworks that disregard labor and environmental conditions continue to lack coherent responses.
The summit is an opportunity. But the study warns that EU-LAC relations cannot remain mere declarations of shared principles: they require concrete instruments, sustained political dialogue, and real support for accountability structures in the countries. The question is whether this time there will be the political will to move from words to mechanisms.
Colombia: Humanitarian Crisis and Record Levels of Violence Against Human Rights Defenders
The figures speak for themselves and are devastating: so far in 2026, Colombia has already recorded 48 massacres. In the last weekend of April alone, 26 attacks were reported. Amnesty International’s 2025 Annual Report, presented in April 2026, is unequivocal: Colombia and Venezuela are two of the most dangerous countries in the world for human rights defenders. In Colombia, the cause is the conflict, which, despite the existing peace agreements, persists due to dissident groups. The Somos Defensores program documented 165 murders of human rights defenders in 2025, the year with the highest level of lethal violence under the Petro administration. The Ombudsman’s Office adds that between January and March 2026 alone, 34 social leaders were murdered and 35 massacres were recorded, resulting in 133 victims.
In this regard, more than nine million Colombians—one-fifth of the population—are victims of the conflict. Dissident groups from the FARC and the ELN, along with criminal networks linked to drug trafficking, are vying for control of rural territories where the state has a minimal presence. In these areas, defending one’s land or engaging in political protest can cost one’s life. Existing protection schemes do not work: in far too many cases, leaders had reported threats before being murdered.
What is clear is that “total peace” has its shortcomings, as it has not yet succeeded in reducing the structural violence plaguing many regions of the country; moreover, various organizations report that the forced recruitment of minors continues to rise.
In this context, the international community—which in recent months has focused on other conflicts—cannot afford to look away from a country that has endured decades of unresolved crisis.
Mexico: Enforced Disappearances Reach the UN General Assembly
On April 2, 2026, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) made an unprecedented decision: for the first time in its history, it invoked Article 34 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance to refer Mexico’s situation to the UN General Assembly. The Committee’s conclusion is grave: there are well-founded indications that enforced disappearances in Mexico are being committed and continue to be committed as crimes against humanity, in multiple regions, with patterns pointing to structural complicity between public officials and organized crime.
The numbers highlight the scale of the problem: the National Registry of Missing Persons exceeds 132,000 cases, and the impunity rate hovers around 98%. According to experts, at the current pace of investigation, identifying all the bodies would take 120 years. Furthermore, in this context, search groups—many led by women—work under conditions of extreme risk: facing documented harassment, criminalization, and sexual violence.
UN High Commissioner Volker Türk, who visited Mexico in April, was blunt: impunity is the common thread running through it all. And while the protection mechanism for defenders and journalists exists, it currently lacks resources and any real preventive capacity.
The CED’s decision does not imply a legal conviction or immediate sanctions, but it opens a window of international pressure that Mexico cannot ignore indefinitely.
Argentina: Social Protest on Trial
The Basque trade union ELA has denounced what is happening in Argentina with a clarity that contrasts with the silence of many international actors: under Milei’s government, social protest is being systematically criminalized. The most well-documented case is that of Córdoba in August 2025: a mobilization by social organizations was suppressed with arbitrary arrests, mistreatment, and disproportionate use of force, resulting in serious injuries. Among those detained were union leaders such as Federico Giuliani, who had recently participated in an international protection program for human rights defenders in the Basque Country.
In Misiones, the same pattern is playing out in the courts: public sector workers have been criminally prosecuted for participating in labor protests. Leaders such as Mónica Gurina and Leandro Sánchez were convicted for their union activities—a case that is currently under appeal and which, regardless of the outcome, has already served as a deterrent.
The logic is well known: it is not always necessary to imprison someone to silence them. It is enough to file criminal charges against them, drag them through years of proceedings, and stigmatize them. This is what legal literature calls “lawfare” applied to social protest, and in Argentina it is advancing with less fanfare, but no less effectively, than the more visible repressions in other countries in the region.
Haiti: Another Massacre, the Same Impunity
On March 29, the “Gran Grif” gang attacked Petite-Rivière de l’Artibonite; in the aftermath, more than 50 homes were set on fire and looted, and thousands of people were displaced.According to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative in the country, at least 70 people were killed; for their part, Haitian authorities provisionally acknowledge 16 dead and 10 wounded. Amnesty International frames it precisely: this is not an isolated tragedy; it is the result of the structural inability of both the Haitian state and the international community to protect the population.
Haiti has been in a state of functional collapse for years. Gangs control entire territories, block humanitarian access, hinder economic activity, and forcibly recruit members. The state has no real capacity to respond. And the international community has oscillated between indifference, debate over missions that never materialize, and political conditionality that hinders any substantive intervention.
What makes the situation particularly grave is its normalization. Each new massacre generates a statement, a condemnation, a demand for justice, and then silence—until the next one. This cycle of violence and impunity cannot be broken without a sustained, coordinated response backed by real resources—something that, so far, has not materialized.
Brazil: Historic Sentence and Record Police Violence
In September 2025, Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court sentenced former President Jair Bolsonaro to more than 27 years in prison for conspiring to remain in power after losing the 2022 election. It is the first time in the country’s history that those responsible for an attempted coup have been tried and sentenced. Human Rights Watch’s 2026 World Report highlights this as a significant democratic milestone, both for Brazil and for the region.
But the same report documents realities that temper this progress. Between January and November 2025, the police killed 5,920 more people than in the previous year. In this context, the report documents that, in October, a single operation in the Penha favela in Rio de Janeiro left 122 dead: the deadliest in the city’s history. It also notes that Black Brazilians are three and a half times more likely to be victims of police violence than white people. Investigations into these deaths remain, in many states, in the hands of the police themselves—a conflict of interest that guarantees impunity.
The contrast between the conviction of Bolsonaro—celebrated as a sign of institutional strength—and the daily police brutality in Brazil’s peripheries illustrates a structural tension that the country has not resolved: formal democracy functions more robustly than in previous years, but the legitimate monopoly on state force continues to operate in a discriminatory and lethal manner toward the most vulnerable populations.
